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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

I've made some progress on this quilt finally. The water in the jug has been quilted and the center of the pouring stream has been quilted also. I am learning a ton on this piece, which means I'd like to do it differently. So I think this may be the first of a series.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

I've mentioned my new quilty friend before, and she doesn't know about the blog so forgive the crypticness of this post but I just had to crow a little! I don't think she'd mind me sharing so much as I don't want to admit to having a blog.

So my quilty friend was once very, very involved in quilting. So much so that she became a NQA certified quilt judge. Which is just fabulous because when I want feedback on my quilting, she really knows all about it. And of course, she met other quilt judges and became friends with them and attended fabulous quilt shows, and took classes from world class teachers. And one of those friends (among others I'm sure) is a nationally known, award-winning quilter who won a very large prize with one of her quilts.

A wall quilt based on a portion of this quilter's mega-prize winning quilt, made by the quilter herself, hangs on the wall in my new quilty friend's lovely home. And in the same room now hangs a little wall quilt by me!!!!! Squeeee! Unbeknownst to me, my lovely and gracious friend bought one of my pieces at the local art and antique shop.

So I can now say my work hangs in the same room as Madame Mystery Quilter!!!!! Woohoo!

Silly, I know. It's about the same as knowing you won second prize in a competition of two, but sometimes you just need that boost of saying I won second prize in such and such. I tend to be so negative sometimes, that I'm gonna look at it in this affirming, positive manner.

And if I don't write any more this week, Merry Christmas! May you celebrate this time with joy, peace, family and friends. I pray that you have partaken of the life-changing gift from that babe born in a manger and that if you haven't, I pray that one day you know the peace that He brings.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

My attempts at Diane-shiko are a bit skewed, but I think it's ok for a start. At first I got sidetracked by the idea of making my own stencil for quick marking of the lines, but then I just went with a ruler and my trusty white pen from clover, which shows up great on dark fabrics and irons away. The lines are 1/2 inch apart. Of course, this thread contrasts well with the fabric, if I had done this in a matching thread, you'd have to look pretty hard to see my bobbles. Here it is after I've removed the markings, which did flatten the texture a bit also.

This is my practice piece I'm working on. Lots of different FMQ designs, a trapuntoed (trapunto'ed?) butterfly which I promptly flattened with stiching. Guess I'll have to try free motion embroidery, then do the trapunto next time.

Did you see that marked area in the above picture? After doing the Diane-shiko, I visited my bloggy friend, Leslie, and was inspired by part of her blog's header design, a geometric based on 60 degree triangles.

Fun! Now I'm trying a little of Superior's Glitter thread. I'll show that soon.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Have you read either of theses books below by Diane Gaudynski on machine quilting? I hadn't until very recently. I had seen her work on the internet, read her blog, but hadn't gotten the books. But I have met a wonderful new quilty friend and she loaned me these two books and I devoured them! They are the best machine quilting books I have read thus far!

I am going to attempt some Diane-shiko soon on one of my big practice pieces. If all goes well, I will show pictures.

And my new quilty friend loved the floral doodle postcard I sent her. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the finished flower so I can't show you. Maybe I can take a photo of it the next time we get together. I think I am really going to be blessed by this new friend and I hope I can be a blessing to her in return. She doesn't know about my blog, so I'm not going to go into details.

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